Chelsea owners BlueCo have secured a deal to become the new shareholders of French club RC Strasbourg, who finished 15th in the recently concluded Ligue 1 season.
Under the terms of the deal, Strasbourg president Marc Keller, who played for West Ham, Portsmouth and Blackburn between 1998 and 2002, will remain in his position.
BlueCo is the parent company created by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital that bought Chelsea last summer. The move to acquire Strasbourg has already drawn similarities with City Football Group and their multi-club stable that includes clubs in the Spain, France, the United States, Australia, Japan, China, India, Uruguay and more.
“This is an important day for Racing,” Keller said. “It’s something my shareholder friends and I have been thinking about for the past two years. We’ve built a club that’s healthy at every level and well managed.
“Although there was no financial urgency, we were aware that we had reached the ceiling of our model, and if we wanted to continue driving Racing forward and projecting it into a new dimension, we necessarily needed to be accompanied by a solid structure capable of supporting our development and our ambition.
“I am therefore delighted of the perspective to welcome a new strategic investor, with whom we would accelerate the club’s ambition to build the Racing of tomorrow.”